


The Devil Won't Let Me Be

by pyrimidine



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-03
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrimidine/pseuds/pyrimidine





	The Devil Won't Let Me Be

The military is totally making him gay, he thinks, and none of that 'no homo' bullshit, this is _all_ homo, fuck yeah, because all day and all night he's stuck beside Brad with their kneecaps almost touching, and Walt's crotch practically caressing his ear like a fucking cat tail, and Trombley is kind of attractive if you want to live on the edge and bang a complete sociopath, and like -- like, even Reporter could be attractive in an educated, hippie way, if you were into that kind of shit. He'd bet Brad's nuts that Reporter totally beds an undergrad every week, all like, "Hey baby, my carbon footprint is minuscule but my dick is fucking huge," and maybe she's even pretty hot despite the fact that she smells like patchouli and you'd need a k-bar on hand to cut through all the bush around her pussy.

"My girlfriend is actually a little older than me," Reporter offers.

"Just let him talk himself out," Brad drawls. He leans out the window and flicks spit through his teeth.

Fuck Brad, he fucking thinks he knows Ray and shit. Fuck this guy.

Brad hums. "Mm hmm."

Anyway, at this point Ray's situational awareness is pretty much all about situational _gayness_ , right, because if he isn't in the Humvee, he's catching flashes of Rudy's bare-ass prancing across his vision, or Stafford and Christeson shirtless, miming grinding someone like they're at a junior high dance and 'Freaks of the Industry' just started bumping over the fucking speakers. So really, he can't help it. And as much as he'd like to, he can't fucking just lie on the ground all day, waiting for tanks to pass by so that Mother Earth can give him a handjob. He can't do that because he has to drive four other bastards around like a never-ending hayride through a desert, yee-fucking-haw.

Man, 'Freaks of the Industry'. Great song. Great fucking song.

"Isn't there a law saying that you can't fuck the earth?" Trombley asks. "There should be a name for that."

"Yeah, like bestiality. You're tainting nature," Walt says. "With your dick," he adds.

Walt is adorable. Ray repeats this phrase while they're digging their graves, dropping his shovel and going over to press a kiss to Walt's hair a few times to really drive the point home. Yeah, whatever, Poke is standing a few feet away and shaking his head, but so what, Reporter is smiling and Pappy is smiling and Brad is almost smiling, kind of, maybe a little if Ray tilts his head and closes his eyes almost all the way, so it's a good night for it. Totally a good night for it.

But on second thought, he might have overdone it because he's speeding pretty hard. Then he starts thinking about tripping on E for the first time in high school. He didn't really like the flowery, empathizing, goddamn gay touchy part like everyone else, but the part that kicked in later, the part with the speed or the amphetamines or whatever the fuck it was cut with, kicked in around 4am and he was pretty much vibrating in his bed, hands shoved into his armpits because his extremities felt like ice blocks. He was thinking clearly by that part of the night, but his thoughts were just all sped up and feeling like a freight train crashing through his head. Sleep hadn't come till 9am and he'd spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, letting his brain run wild. Lying in his childhood bed, which had been beaten down over the years until it was just a mushy mattress with mismatched sheets that he hadn't washed for months; he focused on the popcorn ceilings, the clean scrape running through the middle from when he'd swung a golf club in his room, thinking about everything, thinking about nothing.

"Ray," Brad barks, but in a hoarse whisper. "How much of that shit did you take?"

Ray sits up and sees Brad staring at him, staring at him like he's going to kill him with one well-aimed punch to the head. Ray finds himself staring back, because looking into Brad's eyes is weirdly soothing, makes him think of polar ice caps and freezing water.

"Notalot," Ray says all in one word. Maybe he took too much. He can't really tell how loud he's talking right now. "Not a lot," he repeats more carefully.

Brad continues drilling a hole into Ray's head with his eyes. "Go to sleep," he says finally.

Ray stretches his arm out, intending to reach for Brad's hand, but it's nowhere near long enough to even reach Brad at all. He pats the ground instead. "You keep me in check, Brad. Make me walk the straight and narrow, you know? I appreciate that, I really do, Brad. I love you, you know?" He pats the ground some more.

In response, Brad disappears out of sight as he lies down again and someone says, "I'd appreciate it if you could shut the fuck up, Person, Jesus Christ."

"No need to petition Jesus, my friend, he's not around in this hellhole!" Ray crows.

He laughs gleefully and then gulps it down almost right away, but he's still smiling so hard it feels like it's splitting his face, stretching his cheek muscles apart to a breaking point. He's smiling until it feels like he's never going to do anything else, and then all of a sudden it just slides off, easy as that. He can't even remember why he'd been smiling in the first place. His mouth is slack and now he hears himself breathing, silence all around, his heart pounding, _boom-boom-boom-boom_. Each pulse is like a fingernail digging into his consciousness, nudging underneath the high that he's riding and prying it up and away.

He strains to hear anything else: someone is still digging in the darkness. Someone else is humming the theme song for _Pee Wee Herman_. There's a rustle of thick paper, probably a map being unfolded.

He presses his fists to his chest. _Boom-boom-boom-boom_.

"Brad," he whispers, expecting the sound to just disappear into the dark, but Brad replies, "I'm gonna fucking kill you," straight to the point and half-serious, which makes Ray feel a little better.

Still, that heartbeat is all he can focus on. But he's been here before, at this stage of the comedown, so he just lies there and breathes, tucking his hands into his armpits for good measure. He stares up at the huge, unending sky, counting his heartbeats, thinking about everything, thinking about nothing.


End file.
